We Saved You a Seat

Welcome to the sixth and final release of my conversation with Salena King-Coughlin. As an educator and researcher, Salena digs into the numbers of Oklahoma families who are tied to maternal morbidity. She shares ideas and additional ways to plan or advocate when you truly feel like you have exhausted all advocacy avenues.  I am so grateful to Salena for sharing her story and experience. She is a...

Part five of Salena’s story continues to focus on her postpartum journey of advocacy, CT scans, readmission, and survival. Thank you for listening to one story that represents many more. It’s not easy to walk back through the trauma of what happened, and we are incredibly grateful that Salena could share her story with us, and you felt brave enough to listen. This is part five of six of my convers...

Welcome to part four of my conversation with Salena King-Coughlin. In today’s episode, we begin our discussion on the postpartum experience and care Salena had. Salena has walked us through her pregnancy, delivery, NICU, and now we begin hearing about what it was like for her in the period of postpartum, or what has been termed, "the 4th trimester".  Thank you for allowing us to break down a long...

Welcome back for part three with Salena King-Coughlin. If you haven't had the opportunity to listen to parts one and two, we hope you'll go back and listen to catch up on how we got here.  Salena's daughter, Sophia, landed in NICU, and this episode walks us through the emotional stress of this experience from someone who understands and studies infant mental health and attachment.     We are so th...

We continue our conversation with Salena King-Coughlin as she shares details about her delivery and some of the chaos that ensues. She shares ways she advocated for herself and her baby, as well as some moments that are hard for many to comprehend.  

Salena King-Coughlin is mom to Sophia and wife to Tyler. She has her PhD, Infant Mental Health Endorsement, is a Certified Family Life Educator, and at the time of our recording was pursuing her graduate certificate in public health. Her journey through pregnancy, delivery, NICU, and recovery is the focus of this series tied to Maternal Morbidity and Mortality.     Thank you, Salena, for sharing y...

Today we’re diving into an issue which is important to Meske and affects thousands of Oklahoma families, though it doesn’t always get the attention it deserves: early developmental screenings. Meske provided We Saved You A Seat with lots of statistics: 65% of Oklahoma children between 9 and 35 months old are not receiving developmental screenings. Early intervention from birth costs ≈ $37,000 per...

If there is a resource out there, there's a good chance Meske has found it. Meske has been trained in Trust-Based Relational Intervention (TBRI), Partners in Policymaking (PIP), Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT), Circle of Security and so many others. In this episode, Meske provides us with a glimpse into her experience with SoonerStart, Early Head Start, the struggle of trying to navigate p...

Meet Meske!!  Meske will provide a voice from the mom, advocate, and survivor perspective at an interim study designed to highlight the need to improve access to developmental screenings to Oklahoma's youngest children, and we want you to know her and understand the why behind her passion.  This is episode one of three, where you get to meet Meske and learn about Meske as a mom, advocate, incredib...

Darrian Williams, a mom to two precious girls, shares with us her chaotic experience tied to giving birth to her first daughter.   The State Maternal Health Innovation (MHI) Program is one of many complementary investments made to improve maternal health across the nation. Oklahoma’s State MHI Program has partnered with the Oklahoma Family Network to help improve maternal health by providing OFN a...

The State Maternal Health Innovation Program is one of many complementary investments made to improve maternal health across the nation. Oklahoma’s State Maternal Health Innovation Program has partnered with Oklahoma Family Network to help improve maternal health by allowing OFN to share family stories of those touched personally by critical health outcomes during pregnancy or soon after giving bi...

The State Maternal Health Innovation Program is one of many complementary investments made to improve maternal health across the nation. Oklahoma’s State Maternal Health Innovation Program has partnered with Oklahoma Family Network to help improve maternal health by allowing OFN to share family stories of those touched personally by critical health outcomes during pregnancy or soon after giving bi...

Robyn and her family have the unique opportunity to highlight and honor two big topics in September. September is both Hydrocephalus Awareness Month and NICU Awareness Month, and this sweet family helped bring conversation and education to both subjects in our podcast release today.   Birth trauma and NICU experiences can be difficult to process. We are always thankful for those willing to share t...

Welcome September and Hydrocephalus Awareness Month!  Oklahoma Family Networked partnered with the sweetest mom to share her experience with her daughter's diagnosis of Hydrocephalus in utero.  Throughout the month, we will share pieces of her journey through diagnosis, delivery, NICU stay, resources, and community support, as they faced an uncertain future with their precious baby girl, Eliza!  ...

Thank you for joining us for the second episode with guests Matt and Laura Samargis, as we continue to highlight and honor this incredible family during Deaf-Blind Awareness Month. (You can listen here to Episode One )   In this episode, Matt and Laura share impactful moments and resources for living in rural Oklahoma.    What an honor to meet and visit with Matt and Laura and know you will enjoy...

  Matt and Laura's Samargis, a family from rural Oklahoma share with us today some of their journey as parents who have a child in the deaf-blind community. Today we get a glimpse into their incredibly busy lives and I know you will enjoy hearing their unique testimony and learning more from them.   They share some of their favorite resources with us today, and you can find their links below: Okla...

As we honor and celebrate Deaf-Blind Awareness Month, I'm excited for people to hear from Lisa Lawter with the Oklahoma Deaf-Blind Technical Assistance Program.    Lisa is passionate about helping and serving families who have children with unique medical needs, and this is a resource we want to celebrate and share.   https://www.ou.edu/education/centers-and-partnerships/deaf-blind-project   Lisa...

Lora Roberts, Eastern Regional Coordinator for Oklahoma Family Network, helps us understand Sibshops for brothers and sisters who have a sibling with special needs. She shares more about her Tulsa Sibshops experience and what families can expect when they bring their child.

Understanding healthy boundaries in our relationships is essential to taking care of ourselves. Join us for a class as we work through misconceptions and proven strategies that help you set healthy boundaries for yourself to help in all of your relationships.   If you'd like to watch the training and view Lauren's slides, please joining us on our YouTube Channel: https://youtu.be/xuz2yg8P8S0

Celebrating Rare Disease Day with double the podcast release today! As we continue to celebrate and honor the day set aside to bring awareness to our incredible families with a rare diagnosis, I want to thank Sky Collins for sharing in our previous release about Oklahoma Rare.  She continues on to share more about the personal diagnostic journey their family experienced as they tried to advocate a...

Every year, on the last day of February, the world comes together to recognize Rare Disease Day—a global initiative dedicated to raising awareness for rare diseases and the millions of people affected by them.   Today, We Saved You A Seat is incredibly honored to share a few things Oklahoma is doing to help bring awareness, advocacy, conversation and support to and for those impacted by a rare dia...

In this presentation, we will discuss how to set goals for positive change for all ages while still having a self-compassion focus. This can help us break the pattern of shame about things we want to change and instead apply simple but profound principles for effective growth. If you would like the presentation handouts please email: erin-parks@oklahomafamilynetwork.org

Sometimes we are so focused on behavior that we don't realize how powerful purposeful relationships can be in responding to negative behavior and preventing things from ever happening. We will look at the work of Dr. Lori Desautels and her book Connections over Compliance to learn brain-based strategies for connecting with kids and responding to and preventing frustrating behaviors.

Welcome to National Wear Red Day 2025!   After finally getting a diagnosis of Postpartum Cardiomyopathy, Chrissy learns what her future looks like and shares with us how she processed this unexpected diagnosis and what she did to survive as a mom who needed lots of help from doctors, family, and friends.   To learn more from the American Heart Association about Postpartum Cardiomyopathy (or Peripa...

On December 11th, 2024 Chrissy Cleary proudly announced, "awww my Heart Failure is 18 - an adult."    Chrissy Cleary is mom to three children, and after she delivered her 3rd baby, she developed some scary symptoms that some medical professionals identified as "normal" and/or wrote off as anxiety.   In this episode of We Saved You A Seat, Chrissy describes truly easy and wonderful pregnancies, her...